For the
first 10 minutes or so of Mr. Peabody
& Sherman, it appears that screenwriter Craig Wright and director Rob
Minkoff have found just the right approach to adapting and, more importantly,
updating the adventures of a time-traveling Beagle and his boy. The movie's style is far removed from the original cartoon created by Ted
Key and featured as part of Jay Ward's television show featuring a moose named
Bullwinkle, a flying squirrel named Rocky, and a bunch of their friends, but in
the movie's prologue, we quickly get past the hurdle of appearances.

Yes,
Peabody and Sherman are now the products of computer animation, and yes, it's
missing the charm of the off-kilter lines and choppy but lovingly hand-drawn
animation. Yes, Peabody is always on
his hind legs, and yes, Sherman looks like a computer-animated boy of the
generic variety. Still, though, that
opening has momentum, a feeling of discovery, and, above all, a sense of
invention.

For
those not in the know, Mr. Peabody (voice of Ty Burrell) is a talking dog and
one of the world's foremost geniuses—an inventor, a philosopher, a master of
logic and various martial arts. He
graduated from Harvard and, after much professional success, currently resides
in a penthouse apartment in New York City. The
movie sees him as a puppy at a pound, overlooked by many a potential, loving
owner because he has his head crammed in Plato or argues about the logic of
playing fetch ("You're just going to throw the stick again," he tells
a boy, who immediately looks elsewhere).

His son
is Sherman (voice of Max Charles), a 7-year-old human child whom Peabody adopted
because, well, every dog needs a boy (or, as the judge puts it, "If a boy
can adopt a dog, I see no reason a dog cannot adopt a boy"). Knowing the limitations of his own puppyhood, Peabody insists that
Sherman learn all he can, especially about history, and to that end, the dog
invented a time machine called the WABAC (pronounced "way-back).

The
prologue's climax involves their last trip into past before Sherman begins his
first day of school. They head to
Paris in 1793 to witness the French Revolution and kind-of, sort-of accidentally
start it by refusing Marie Antoinette's offer of cake. Then the Reign of Terror hits, and Peabody is carted off to the
guillotine with the other aristocrats.

It's
dark stuff, but there's also a bit of delight in the way Peabody uses his
ability for impromptu decision-making to escape—seeing diagrams of
infrastructure, plotted trajectories, and other things necessary to make a
last-second switch as the blade drops. He's
smart, but the movie doesn't turn him into an anti-social fool. Even when he displays trouble grasping emotions (When Sherman says he
loves his father, Peabody responds, "I have a deep regard for you,
too"), Peabody is still likeable, and that goes a long way when a
character's go-to brand of humor is the pun.

The
reason the opening sequence works is because it stands alone, but soon after,
Wright introduces a central plot that steadily diminishes the promise of the
more episodic narrative established in the beginning. Sherman goes to school and is bullied by classmate Penny (voice of Ariel
Winter), a spoiled brat who stays that way for most of the movie until necessity
dictates that she not be. He bites
her in response, and a Child Protective Services agent (voice of Allison Janney)
threatens to take Sherman away from Peabody.

Peabody
decides to impress Penny's parents (voices of Stephen Colbert and Leslie Mann)
with dinner, drinks, and conversation at his apartment, and Sherman decides to
try to impress Penny with the WABAC. Penny
decides to stay in ancient Egypt to marry a young pharaoh, and the father-son
team go back to rescue her from her shortsightedness regarding ancient Egyptian
funeral practices for the surviving widow of a deceased pharoah.

The
Egypt segment—and the movie is at its best when it's intentionally divided
into segments—is also amusing, but once it's complete, that's also pretty much
the end of the movie's attempt at an episodic narrative. From there, it's all about the trio getting back to the present and
making stops along the way for them all to have moments of revelation.

Peabody
is too tough on his son (Leonardo da Vinci, voiced by Stanley Tucci, explains
this, although the distraction of the stereotypical "a" at the end of
every word lessens the lesson). Sherman
has to learn to be his own person aside from his father's son. The relationship between the two is established in a montage that shows
Peabody raising the boy in reverse, taking him to various points in history to
meet famous people. It's touching,
but there's a disconnect from the relationship's impact because the only reason
it matters is the generic conflict that could rip it apart.

By
the time Mr. Peabody & Sherman has
given us a hole in the space-time continuum, it no longer has the quaint feel of
its start, where intellect and imagination are more than enough for a dog and
his boy. For all the flashbacks and
external forces and close calls that try to develop this relationship, the movie
doesn't realize the answer is in a single question: "What did you learn
today?"